1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an electric shifting device for a vehicle in which the shifting device includes a shift lever and a shift-limiting gate having a gate channel with the shift lever being mounted on a rotatable axis extending perpendicularly to the gate channel and being movable into different shift positions in the gate channel.
2. Background Art
An electric shifting device having a shift lever and a shift-limiting gate with at least one gate channel is used in vehicles equipped with an automated manual transmission. The shift-limiting gate serves to guide and limit the motion of the shift lever to the gate channel(s). The actual shifting process is carried out electro-hydraulically or by a motor while the desired gear selection of the vehicle user (e.g., the driver) is electronically detected. In such an automated manual transmission, the shift lever and possibly additional rocker switches for shifting up and down are available to the driver.
The shift lever can be multi-stable or mono-stable. A multi-stable shift lever can be set in any one of a plurality of stable positions. A mono-stable shift lever, like a joystick, has only one stable position into which the shift lever returns to from any one of a plurality of unstable positions.
In the case of the shift-limiting gate having two or more gate channels, the shift-limiting gate further includes one or more connecting channels. Typically, the shift-limiting gate is configured such that the gate channels are arranged parallel to one another with each pair of gate channels being connected to one another by a respective connecting channel extending perpendicularly to the gate channels. The shift lever is movable along a connecting channel extending between a pair of gate channels in order to move from one of the gate channels to the other gate channel.
DE 102 06 985 A1 (corresponding to U.S. Pat. No. 7,028,575) describes a shifting device having a mono-stable shift lever. The shift lever can pivot about two axes perpendicular to one another and can thereby be moved in two gate channels parallel to one another. The shift lever returns to the same respective stable position when the actuation force is released.